Americas

2006

Rómoli, a reporter for Agencia Nova, was attacked by a woman and two men who burst into the news agency's office days after a report on alleged abuses at a local orphanage in La Plata, capital of Buenos Aires province.

Unidentified individuals broke into Manrique’s home in the northwestern city of San Juan early in the morning of December 20 and set the journalist’s car on fire, reported Diario de Cuyo, for which Manrique directs the police section.

The Maynas Sixth Criminal Court in the northeastern province of Loreto sentenced Salazar, director of the local daily El Oriente, and Olavarría, editorial director for the Iquitos region, to a suspended one-year prison term, and fined them 1,500 Nuevos Soles (US$470) on criminal defamation charges, according to the Peruvian press.

Herrera, a columnist who covers the armed forces for the Santo Domingo-based weekly Clave and the Internet daily Clave Digital, said in an interview with CPJ that he has been threatened and followed by unidentified individuals after reporting on corruption in the Dominican armed forces.

Ksheratto, columnist for the daily Cuarto Poder, was released on parole in the southern Chiapas state after 41 days in prison, the Mexican press reported. He was detained on November 9 for allegedly violating a condition of bail stemming from a 2003 criminal defamation suit.

Rodríguez Albacia, a reporter for the independent news agency Jóvenes sin censura, was released at 10 p.m. on December 12, after being detained for nine days at Havana’s police station, 100 y Aldabó. He told CPJ that authorities filed charges against him for spreading false news that harmed international peace, and barred him from leaving Havana while the trial is pending.

Unidentified assailants attempted to toss homemade bombs at the offices of Canal 7, a state-owned television station in the eastern city of Santa Cruz, 529 miles (851 kilometers) southeast of La Paz. Security guards thwarted the attack. No one was injured and there was limited damage, Beimar Villalpando, a journalist with the television station, told CPJ.

New York, December 7, 2006--The number of journalists jailed worldwide for their work increased for the second consecutive year, and one in three is now an Internet blogger, online editor, or Web-based reporter, according to an analysis by the Committee to Protect Journalists.